MemphisMan84
New Member
I can honestly say that I've been looking for something like this forum (and the informational websites found or recommended herein) for nearly half of my life thus far. In joining and reading through some of the posts, I can also tell that this is a common theme that's threaded throughout the different stories and anecdotes of personal hardship and advice from experience of the members of this forum.
I'm 30 years (31 this October), and I've been watching and using porn since the age of 12. Like one of Gabe's intro videos points out, I was part of a generation that came of age when residential in-home internet use and internet speed was starting to pick up. I remember switching from the old dial-up to DSL as a kid and being amazed at how much faster everything seemed. School work started to incorporate internet searches and e-mailed assignments. However, and this goes without saying here, this increased reliability and speed that came with web-surfing and, eventually, the discovery of porn sites. I was raised in a fairly religiously-conservative household, although nothing too extreme or overly restrictive. But, as far as my parents and the "World Wide Web" was concerned, they were clueless at first about what was accessible and just how easy adult material was to find. My peers and I were on the cusp of discovering free and incredibly easy access to material that my father's generation would be lucky to find once or twice a month within the pages of glossy magazines and the occasional "adult movie". I remember first finding online porn by doing a simple search for the word "sex". It was a simple as that. The rest, as they say, is history.
As I went through my teenage years and into college, my fapping habits became more structured and (to use that old pop psychology phrasing) 'ritualistic'. I had certain sites that I went to to check for daily updates, hoping for the titillation that came along with seeing new faces and bodies doing familiar things. The first credit cards that I took out in my own name each had porn subscriptions charged to them hesitation. As torrenting and tube sites came into the picture, I would do what I've come to term as "chasing scenes" - seeking out a scene that was previewed on one of the main porn sites and searching relentlessly until I found it. This was during undergraduate studies and beyond, and I noticed that I was becoming more withdrawn and that I was displaying signs of social anxiety. I also noticed something that didn't trouble me at first, but came to be one of the reasons that I find myself writing here today: I was more flippantly objectifying the women that I came across in real-life social situations, judging them by their sexual attributes alone, wondering what their bodies would look like in the positions I imagined or, more to the point, what they would look like in the scenes that I had fapped to earlier in the morning. As this became something that my mind seemed to start doing on it's own, I started to feel a sliver of worry and of self-loathing. I considered myself a feminist, and here I was just straight-up turning the women that I would walk by, interact with, or share classes with into sexual objects. It never got to cat-calling or creepy levels of pursuit or anything like that, but I was disturbed.
Before I met the woman that would become my wife, I would usually just work towards hooking up with women that I worked with or that I knew socially. All the while, my porn use continued, and I began noticing some detrimental effects in the bedroom, i.e. ED and some DE as well. This was when I started edging - I figured that, if I fapped but stopped short before achieving an O, I would have the drive to complete the full act with a woman that I was hooking up with later. Sometimes this seemed to work, but other times it didn't. As a method of preventing outright ED during actual PIV, it was inconsistent at best. In 2007, I reconnected with this beautiful girl that I had known in high school, and everything clicked. After 3 years of dating, I put the ring on her and we were happily married, with her starting a new career and me going back and starting my graduate studies. Throughout this period, the porn use continued, in secret, but still on a regular basis. I would still be checking for site updates every morning, either on my phone or on my tablet, and would usually fap at my home computer when I would be home alone. The guilt and shame that I began to feel (that I was basically cheating on my wife digitally with pixels on a screen) were starting to weigh on me more and more. But I just kept going, and kept at my routine.
Within the last 2 years, I've really started to notice the side-effects of the conditioning that I've been subjecting myself to. The site checks and scene chasing became habitual, to the point where I would open up my browser and almost instinctively begin typing in the addresses to familiar tube sites. Mentally, it has become a juggling act, trying to maintain a outwardly healthy demeanor, to remain interested in sex with my wife, to act like a problem of the past is just that - in the past. But since about 2012-2013, I have noticed a decline in physical energy, as well as a sharp increase in depressive symptoms and even more social anxiety than normal. My wife has known that I've had porn problems in the past, but I kept reassuring her that it would end and that I'd grow out of it. The problem is that, before 2 days ago, I never have truly attempted to. I'd edge, or trigger myself with Youtube videos and Tumblr sites, just telling myself that this would be it - after this last fap, I am done. Then, the next day, it'd be back to square one.
So, 2 days ago, I sat down with my wife and let it all out. I told her that I'd found yourbrainonporn.com and read through some of the forum topics on Reboot Nation, and that I was ready to be serious about this. It was important that she know that I was coming clean, and that I was seeking help and seeking to reboot and start over with this aspect of my life, but it was even more important to me that I actually believe in myself this time around; that I put in the effort and work to fully rebooting and getting myself out of the rut that I've been in for the better part of 18 years of my life. So I'm 2 days in and I feel good. Not great, but good. I know some veterans out there may be thinking "it'll get harder" or "you ain't seen nothing yet", and I know that, as I've just started, that's probably true. You don't give yourself over to an addiction like this for 18 years and honestly expect it to be easy, unless you're looking to fool yourself. But here I am - and I hope to keep coming back and updating this as I go along, working towards total recovery and towards a truly porn-free life.
So, if anyone is reading this and has advice, please reach out and share, and keep it coming! And thanks in advance!
I'm 30 years (31 this October), and I've been watching and using porn since the age of 12. Like one of Gabe's intro videos points out, I was part of a generation that came of age when residential in-home internet use and internet speed was starting to pick up. I remember switching from the old dial-up to DSL as a kid and being amazed at how much faster everything seemed. School work started to incorporate internet searches and e-mailed assignments. However, and this goes without saying here, this increased reliability and speed that came with web-surfing and, eventually, the discovery of porn sites. I was raised in a fairly religiously-conservative household, although nothing too extreme or overly restrictive. But, as far as my parents and the "World Wide Web" was concerned, they were clueless at first about what was accessible and just how easy adult material was to find. My peers and I were on the cusp of discovering free and incredibly easy access to material that my father's generation would be lucky to find once or twice a month within the pages of glossy magazines and the occasional "adult movie". I remember first finding online porn by doing a simple search for the word "sex". It was a simple as that. The rest, as they say, is history.
As I went through my teenage years and into college, my fapping habits became more structured and (to use that old pop psychology phrasing) 'ritualistic'. I had certain sites that I went to to check for daily updates, hoping for the titillation that came along with seeing new faces and bodies doing familiar things. The first credit cards that I took out in my own name each had porn subscriptions charged to them hesitation. As torrenting and tube sites came into the picture, I would do what I've come to term as "chasing scenes" - seeking out a scene that was previewed on one of the main porn sites and searching relentlessly until I found it. This was during undergraduate studies and beyond, and I noticed that I was becoming more withdrawn and that I was displaying signs of social anxiety. I also noticed something that didn't trouble me at first, but came to be one of the reasons that I find myself writing here today: I was more flippantly objectifying the women that I came across in real-life social situations, judging them by their sexual attributes alone, wondering what their bodies would look like in the positions I imagined or, more to the point, what they would look like in the scenes that I had fapped to earlier in the morning. As this became something that my mind seemed to start doing on it's own, I started to feel a sliver of worry and of self-loathing. I considered myself a feminist, and here I was just straight-up turning the women that I would walk by, interact with, or share classes with into sexual objects. It never got to cat-calling or creepy levels of pursuit or anything like that, but I was disturbed.
Before I met the woman that would become my wife, I would usually just work towards hooking up with women that I worked with or that I knew socially. All the while, my porn use continued, and I began noticing some detrimental effects in the bedroom, i.e. ED and some DE as well. This was when I started edging - I figured that, if I fapped but stopped short before achieving an O, I would have the drive to complete the full act with a woman that I was hooking up with later. Sometimes this seemed to work, but other times it didn't. As a method of preventing outright ED during actual PIV, it was inconsistent at best. In 2007, I reconnected with this beautiful girl that I had known in high school, and everything clicked. After 3 years of dating, I put the ring on her and we were happily married, with her starting a new career and me going back and starting my graduate studies. Throughout this period, the porn use continued, in secret, but still on a regular basis. I would still be checking for site updates every morning, either on my phone or on my tablet, and would usually fap at my home computer when I would be home alone. The guilt and shame that I began to feel (that I was basically cheating on my wife digitally with pixels on a screen) were starting to weigh on me more and more. But I just kept going, and kept at my routine.
Within the last 2 years, I've really started to notice the side-effects of the conditioning that I've been subjecting myself to. The site checks and scene chasing became habitual, to the point where I would open up my browser and almost instinctively begin typing in the addresses to familiar tube sites. Mentally, it has become a juggling act, trying to maintain a outwardly healthy demeanor, to remain interested in sex with my wife, to act like a problem of the past is just that - in the past. But since about 2012-2013, I have noticed a decline in physical energy, as well as a sharp increase in depressive symptoms and even more social anxiety than normal. My wife has known that I've had porn problems in the past, but I kept reassuring her that it would end and that I'd grow out of it. The problem is that, before 2 days ago, I never have truly attempted to. I'd edge, or trigger myself with Youtube videos and Tumblr sites, just telling myself that this would be it - after this last fap, I am done. Then, the next day, it'd be back to square one.
So, 2 days ago, I sat down with my wife and let it all out. I told her that I'd found yourbrainonporn.com and read through some of the forum topics on Reboot Nation, and that I was ready to be serious about this. It was important that she know that I was coming clean, and that I was seeking help and seeking to reboot and start over with this aspect of my life, but it was even more important to me that I actually believe in myself this time around; that I put in the effort and work to fully rebooting and getting myself out of the rut that I've been in for the better part of 18 years of my life. So I'm 2 days in and I feel good. Not great, but good. I know some veterans out there may be thinking "it'll get harder" or "you ain't seen nothing yet", and I know that, as I've just started, that's probably true. You don't give yourself over to an addiction like this for 18 years and honestly expect it to be easy, unless you're looking to fool yourself. But here I am - and I hope to keep coming back and updating this as I go along, working towards total recovery and towards a truly porn-free life.
So, if anyone is reading this and has advice, please reach out and share, and keep it coming! And thanks in advance!
